Giving Pitt’s Innovation Engine a Unified Voice
The University of Pittsburgh’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIE) exists to do something genuinely hard: take the raw material of a major research university—the faculty discoveries, student ideas and regional business ambition—and turn it into real-world impact. Research that becomes a start-up. An idea that becomes a company. A region that becomes a destination for innovation.
OIE had the infrastructure to make that happen. Three distinct units, University Technology Commercialization, the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence and the Big Idea Center, serve very different audiences at very different stages of the innovation journey. What OIE didn’t have was a unified voice to tie all the pieces together.
That’s where BD&E came in.
Through stakeholder interviews, peer benchmarking, and a close read of how OIE’s audiences engage with the organization, BD&E developed a comprehensive brand strategy built around one central idea: OIE’s greatest strength isn’t any single unit—it’s the ecosystem. The strategic work led to a cleaner customer-facing structure for how OIE presents its capabilities, sharper individual unit identities, and a brand framework that makes it easy for any audience, whether faculty, students, entrepreneurs, investors or regional partners, to understand what OIE offers and how to engage.
From that foundation, BD&E created a brandline encapsulating the entire organization in just four words: Together, We Advance Possibility.
Then, a full suite of brand assets followed, including a brand essence video, social media assets, and strategic messaging built to move across every channel and audience.